Car Art

When we gaze upon the many new cars that are released year round, some of them look average, some look quite nice, but than there is the category of ones that simply stun us. We call them sculptures; nay works of art, driving their way into our hearts and dreams. Many supercars have this presence but even luxury sedans can have that unique flair, and with the addition of a few true artists they become a canvas for inspiration.

The BMW website has recently released a collection of cars that it has had professional artists paint. A huge range of various models have been chosen from M3’s to V12 LMR’s, each representing a time in BMW’s rich past, each exemplify how easily a cars shapes can be turned into gorgeous artworks.

Producing 17 unique vehicles, the idea was crafted by the auctioneer and driver Herve Poulain who wanted to combine speed with different type of beauty. Very prominent artists were chosen to take part in the exhibition, those to note include Roy Lichtenstein’s BMW 320i from 1977 who painted lines on the vehicle to show its speed, along side this he used his famous dots, adding his own signature to the piece.

Similarly BMW hired the world renowned Andy Warhol to paint the BMW M1 in 1979. Famous for soup cans as well as pictures of marlin Monroe, he also tried to embrace speed in this design, looking not unlike splashed cans of paint were thrown onto the car in a vary stylistic manner. It is reminiscent of a Pollock work with a very modern twist, making quite a unique piece of work.

Spanning such a long period of history, the most modern one of these vehicles comes in the shape of the monstrous 2010 BMW M3GT2 by Jeff Koons. The artists has been linked to his famous "Rabbit" and "Puppy" sculptures, he once more took a banal object and added some unique features including a rainbow of lines going outward form the front. Very bright, it looks quite lovely when speeding down the roadway.